Hand Prints and Heart Prints

Baby Jayden’s hand print at two months old.

He is printed on my heart forever.

Grow well and strong, Dear Little One.

I miss you and love you so much !

 

(Jayden is living with his mom, our niece Amanda, back in NH. They are doing ok. He is a healthy, energetic and loving 9 month old now. We get regular news, photos and videos of the little guy which we love receiving. I will be forever grateful to have been part of his world every day for the first four months of his life. Love you, Little Buggy.)

 

Hosted by Susannah Conway.

On the table…

Bad, bad Pumpkin Kitty !!

“What ?” =^^=

Artist at work table.

Completed two page art journal spread.

“What will your verse be?”

(Rest in Peace, Robin Williams. Rest.)

Sweet spots…

On this day, sing your song, make your mess, revel in the beauty, use your voice,

seize this day.

Big Love, Beautiful Ones.

 

Hosted by Susannah Conway.

Haiku My Heart–A Haiku for Joe

A Haiku for Joe

A weaver of tales

He made deep marks on this world

With his heart story.

Man of Peace, my Friend,

Now makes his journey onward

Flies on wings of love.

 

My friend, Joe Spado, died on Monday, December 2nd, 2013.

We connected through Haiku My Heart, lovingly hosted each Friday by Rebecca of recuerda mi corazon.

We never met in person but I know him by heart.

A beautiful work of art by him hangs in my bedroom window, catching dreams and shining with love and care.

I feel as though I have a new guardian spirit hovering in that gentle space beyond.

I know your new travels on the wind will be gentle and peaceful, Man.

I am sending love and comfort to the hearts of those you have left on this side.

Thanks for what your Beautiful Spirit brought to my world.

Love & Peace, Man.

xo

Sharing the Joy - Found & Lost

“Found & Lost”

-art journal page, October 17, 2013

-Moleskine journal, acrylic paint, India ink, collage, found poetry

 

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I am always thankful for the joy,

escape, abandon,

freedom, discoveries,

found in

my art

journal.

Happy Thursday, Beautiful Ones !

 

For more joy sharing, visit Meri at Love, Meri

17 Years Gone By...

Seventeen years ago today,
my Dad's spirit left the world.
I feel him strongly today.
I wish I could have one big, cozy, warm Daddy hug in his big, strong arms. The best hugs I have ever had in my life.
Fly high and free, beautiful Man Spirit.
I love you, Daddy.

Haiku My Heart–She loved them all

Orange lanterns, blue

Hydrangea, sweet, small birds,

Bittersweet. Loves all.

 

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Love and light to the tender hearts of my friend Elizabeth and her family, who saw her mom, Christine, through the end of her journey on Earth last night.

Gentle flight home, Beautiful Christine.

 

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Haiku my Heart at recuerda mi corazon

Haiku My Heart–Three Small Birds

Despair’s teeth sunk in.

Three small birds rescued my heart.

I am free to love.

***********

Yesterday, we got the news that our nephew’s Mike’s 7 year old daughter Kyara had died from injuries suffered in a horrible car accident.

We were not very close to this sweet little girl because of complicated family issues

but she was a very loved member of the Mailhot family. I especially remember the wonderful bubbly “little girl” energy she always brought to family gatherings and how much laughter there was when she is with us.

My heart aches for all of those who loved this little girl, taken from us way too soon, and in such a senseless way.

(candle on my altar for Kyara)

It seems to me that there were a lot of things this week that didn’t make any sense.

As a highly sensitive individual, I sometimes get overwhelmed with how much horror, sadness, loss and pain there is in this world. 

If you know me at all, you know that my life mantra is “Love is the answer to every question.”

I know this is true.

And yet, when the horrible, sad, scary, senseless stuff piles up so high around me,

I sometimes forget that truth.

I let despair sink its cruel teeth into me, and try and drag me down into its depths.

I have to say that after the news of Kyara’s passing yesterday,

despair definitely got hold of me.

It was a very grey day in spite of the sun. I felt sad, lost, angry, helpless, useless and beaten down.

I woke up this morning, again feeling sad,  lost, angry, helpless, useless and beaten down.

I was struggling just to perform the simple morning “mommy duties” here, and was mostly wishing to take a pill to shut down my brain, go back to bed, and pull the sheets up over my head for some indefinite amount of time…

Instead, with a little help from my amazing husband, who is going through his own grieving and sadness, I managed to get duties done, pour myself some coffee, and head into the studio to the computer.

That’s when they saved me.

I have this bird feeder that is now hanging from the very center of our gazebo frame on the back deck. The way it is hung has made it squirrel proof but it hasn’t had too much feeding action yet. I guess the birds haven’t been aware of its presence.

Well, they were this morning.

Just when I really needed them to be.

Not only were a bunch of little common finches and sparrows around, but I heard the magic twitter of my little favs, the chickadees, and suddenly, there they were, three of them all on the feeder at the same time. Twittering and eating away.

I love those little birds ! I felt joy at seeing them there.

I felt joy, in spite of the sadness, loss, helpless, hopeless crap.

Now, I can imagine many people saying “Whoopdidoo, Kim!”

I can even imagine myself saying that to me !

But this morning, those three little birds with their glorious “chickadee bee bee” twitter and their sweet, little black heads saved me.

I know today is going to be hard, and that I am going to have to keep looking towards the light to keep me from falling back down lower into those depths of despair.

But if those three little birds can bring me such tender sweet joy in my heart, there are a lot of other sweet, loving, beautiful things in this world that can too.

And heck, I don’t want to miss that ! That is the sweet stuff of living. Our one main purpose for being here on this crazy, bittersweet, beautiful planet. This my heart knows.

So from this very tender place, I am sending you, and myself,

Big Love, Beautiful Ones.

(Chickadee love – December 2011)

Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', "This is my message to you”.

~ Bob Marley

Share the Joy Thursday : The Acme of Our Own Happiness

Some days, Joy feel so abundant and easy to focus on…

as abundant as the snowflakes that fall over night, covering the tree branches with a cozy, white shawl.

Other times, when we get heavy-hearted with the “why’s” of life,

or with sadness, fears of loss, regrets…

Joy is harder to find, and much harder to focus on.

And yet that is the time when JOY is the most important for us to find.

Focusing on the joy in life helps us find meaning in our “whys”.

It helps us feel comforted in our sadness.

It helps us bring lightness back into our heavy hearts.

It helps us return to the acme of our own happiness.

(my new favorite phrase)

And to remember that in spite of the sad, bad, ugly, seemingly hopeless, moments,

we have this one precious day to truly be here in love, in life, in joy.

And what a joy there is in that.

 

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One of my dear friends was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer yesterday.

There will be no chemo or radiation.

There will be a focus on quality of life.

Shouldn’t that be our focus every day ?

The  prescription she received as she left the doctor’s office :

“Go and live.”

I am going to follow those orders right along with her.

Be here today, Beautiful Ones, in love, in life, in joy !

 

For more joy sharing, visit the beautiful Meri at Meri’s Musings.

Thankfulness Thursday - Heart Healing

So I awoke this morning to a really bad nightmare. (Or a day mare, I guess as it was just before 6:00am). The dream was so vivid and horrible and hard to shake off. I woke up sobbing and shaking. David took me in his arms and held me, which usually works to banish any bad dreams away, but this one kept flashing in my head and making me feel all the feelings of the dream over and over.

The dream was about my Dad. I have dreamed of him being hurt or even dying many times since he died 14 years ago. I have also dreamed of him "visiting"me and where things are peaceful and sweet, but most often, when I dream of him, it is in this traumatic way.

It makes sense to me as his dying was the worst thing that has even happened to me. I was only 30 when he died. He left us much too soon. I also had my share of issues with him that I have gone on to try and resolve on my own. I have always said that my Dad was the person I loved the most and also hated the most in my life. I know now that the hate is over and healed but he still was the most challenging relationship of my life.

So why is this a topic for Thankfulness Thursday or my Weekly Gratitude piece ?

Because today, and every day, I am so grateful for our incredible ability to heal ourselves.

This morning, as I described the dream to my mom, I realized that we are coming into the exact time of year when my Dad was dying. He died on March 3rd. The month of February was full of trauma and fear and uncertainty that year as we went through the process with him. It is strange how some years the pain is worse than others - some years it has been close to pain-free. But this year, I obviously needed to heal some more of that big hurt and my whole being - even my unconscious mind, was going to make sure I did it !

This morning, I had a good, deep, cry for the loss of my Dad. I asked those unanswerable "why ?" questions. I was sad. I mourned a little bit more. I did a page in my journal in honor of the day's feelings. I lit a candle to send a message of love to his spirit. I know I am going to continue this process throughout the day and for as long as I need to.

Today, I used my heart, my mind, my body

and my being's incredible powers for healing,

and I healed one more little piece of

that big, big, hurt.

And for that,

I am very thankful.

I know I am usually a much more upbeat type of blogger, but I am also a honest one. While I try to focus on what is right in my world, I also don't want to ignore or deny the harder stuff we all face in this life. I think we have a lot of work to do to help one another mourn better in this society. Feeling those feelings of hurt and loss is a natural part of our life as human beings, just as feeling joy and love are. While I am not grateful for the hurt or the loss, I am grateful of the places that healing the hard stuff takes me to.

It's all part of being a Big Heart Walking, I guess...

Wishing you sweet moments of healing too, Beautiful Ones...

My Lady Of the Blue Hydrangea

Some of you may remember my post for the GPP Street Crusade #22 - Pay It Forward. I wrote about my neighbor Katherine and how we had been exchanging kindnesses back and forth this summer. Well, I found out today that Katherine died on September 9th, at the age of 51, after her long and brave fight with cancer.

I hadn't seen Katherine in a few weeks and I thought about stopping by every day, just to see if she needed anything. But it just didn't happen... What I didn't know was that she was in a hospice, being cared for as she went on to the next part of her soul's journey. It feels so strange to me that I didn't know she was dying and we didn't even know that she had passed on until David saw her husband coming home today with a big funeral bouquet. We checked the obituaries on line and found out she died on the 9th. Sadly, we even missed the visitation which took place yesterday. Katherine and Stephen have been our next door neighbours for four years. So strange that we lived so close to them, have a friendly over the fence relationship with them and yet when this intense life event occurs, we didn't even know...

I was remembering back to my childhood neighbourhood and thought about how we all knew our neighbors so well. I couldn't imagine my parents not knowing if Mrs. Sooter or Mrs. Olive who lived on either side of us had died. It just goes to show how isolated and disconnected from our community so many of us live. Anyways, regrets won't do much good today. I guess I have to be thankful for the connection that Katherine and I were able to share this summer. I am just so very, very sad to know that my beautiful neighbour has died.

My most crystal clear memory of her is about one day this summer when I went over to have a glass of ice tea and to say thank-you for the beautiful bouquet of blue hydrangeas she had left for me on my porch. She was fresh from the shower as her short cropped hair was wet. She was dressed in clean white from head to toe, in soft cotton pants and a flowy tunic. Though she was very thin and drawn, the first thing I thought was how beautiful and angelic she looked. I told her so, and she laughed. I don't think she was feeling that beautiful that day. But she sure did look that way to me. My neighbour Katherine, my Lady of the Blue Hydrangea. It is comforting to know that your are now free of your pain and that your beautiful spirit is free to fly again. I will always think of you when those flowers bloom...

Happy Father's Day !

Daddy and Me - Circa 1969

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there ! My father has been gone since March of 1996 - that's twelve years....unbelievable... Today we went out for lunch with the hubby's dad, which is nice but Father's Day is always bittersweet fo me now. I think of all the moments and events that he has missed...he never met the hubby... he never met his two grandsons (he always wanted a boy after having three girls of his own), he never got to walk any of us down the aisle as we married the men of our dreams... so sad... I wish most of all that he could see the artist I am now and that we could talk about and share my art. He was so talented himself, and had such an eye and I know he would just "get" what I do... I wish he could at least come for a visit once in awhile. Wouldn't the loss of a loved one be so much easier to get over if you knew that you could visit with them in person once in awhile ?

So here's my Father's Day Wish for all of you who are still lucky enough to have your dads around - Take a moment to look into his eyes and tell him you love him. Make that moment a memory for both of you. The time we have together in this life is much too short not to !